


Never Or Almost So

by Quiet_Shadow



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist Manga, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Gen, Random Encounters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-30 01:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19032043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quiet_Shadow/pseuds/Quiet_Shadow
Summary: Five encounters Greed probably never had...Or rather, four encounters he never had and one which could have happened very, very differently.Various continuities, Brotherhood, Manga and 2003 Anime.





	1. Paninya

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Jamais Ou Presque](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/486748) by Yami Flo. 



> *scratches her head* So, I recently read a really good FMA fic, which I hadn't done in a good while, and it somehow sparked the need to reread the manga and/or rewatch the anime and to translate a couple of drabbles I had written in french a couple years ago (and to expend them a bit while I was at it).
> 
> Here's the result. I hope you will enjoy.

She’s a pickpocket, okay? She’s used to steal stuff without people even noticing she was there. She spots them, she follows them around, she waits for the right time then she accidentally run into them or just rub against them in the crowd and then she walks away, looking perfectly normal, the picture of innocence – for the tourists, at least; Rush Valley’s inhabitants are wise to her tricks, so she doesn’t usually target them, unless she’s having a bad day and someone was a real a-hole to her.

She takes, she leaves and she gets away scot-free, some jewelry pieces, a fat wallet or a watch clutched in her hand. Easy-peasy, she does it all the time.

Except, this time, she didn’t get past the ‘swiftly make her move’ step. She barely started pulling the wallet out of her latest vict… uh, pigeon’s pocket when the man grabs her wrist and squeezes it. It’s not painful, but it still feels like she has her hand in a steel trap.

There is a curious tattoo on the hand holding her prisoner, she notes as she lifts her head to find herself nose-to-sharp-teeth with a tall guy who smiles too much for someone who almost got pick-pocketed. The purple eyes aren’t helping to appease her, because there is something very _off_ about them.

“Well, well, well. What do we have here?”

Paninya just laughs nervously, tugging on her wrist in the vain hope of getting it free (man, the tattoo-man got a strong grip). Seemed like she had picked the wrong target, again.


	2. Sciezka

She’s not exactly certain why she’s here, honestly, face to face with a man who invited her to join him in a seedy bar. Well, ‘invited’ is a strong word. More like, he had her kidnapped by his minions. It was the kind of invitation you couldn’t say ‘no’ to, not if you wanted to get out alive. She’d know, she had read plenty of books about it.

At least they’re the polite sort – she guesses. They served her a drink, which she has yet to touch because alcoholic beverages aren’t her thing.

Plus… kidnap victim here! Eep!

And the man who had her brought here doesn’t seem bothered at all, as if it was normal. Might be for him, sure, but not for her!

“I heard a lot about you. A bookworm who spends her life with her nose in her books and who somehow manages to remember _everything_ she ever read, to the smallest dot and comma? I find it very, _very_ interesting. A gift like yours could be very useful to me and my associates. What would you say about working for me, little lady?”

Greed, if it’s his real name, is showing too many teeth when he smiles, and they’re too pointy to be honest. One of the men behind him got a hand lingering on his katana. And another, bigger man who said nothing so far but never let her out of his gaze owns a big, big hammer.

Sciezka swallows nervously and try to smile, though she can’t seem to master it. Under those conditions, it’s kinda hard to say ‘no’, right…?


	3. Winry

Taking one of their friends or associates as an hostage to force the Elric brothers to come to him didn’t sound like a bad idea on paper. A little harsh, maybe, but that wouldn’t be the first or the last time he had to sink to such extremities – people who weren’t part of the underground had this nasty habit not to listen to him without a good motivation.

Of course, they hadn’t accounted for the potential hostage’s temper when they had put the plan together, nor her amazing ability to wield a wrench like an improvised or a painful projectile. Well, painful for others, not for him, what’s with his Ultimate Shield, but he could commiserate. That was going to leave a bruise or two behind.

Actually, half his men are nursing them head in their hand or whimpering pitifully while holding a certain part of their anatomy (good kick, he notes), asking for aspirin or something for the pain, and it makes him want to applaud just for the sheer gall of the little lady. Their hostage, a pretty little blond thing with a fiery temper he can respect, give them all dark looks while still holding her wrench for dear life that she somehow managed to get back.

And Greed, who should be ticked off or annoyed with this clear lack of cooperation, can’t help himself but laugh aloud. Even when that Winry girl decides to try and club _him_ over the head too, he just laughs. Brave girl, he thinks with amused fondness.

He always liked the feisty ones.


	4. Maria

“Boss, what the hell are you doing?! She’s Military, she’s…!”

The Chimera has the good sense to just shut and swallow dryly under the glare Greed levels at him. Good boy. Just because he’s angry and antsy to get away from this place, something Greed perfectly understands since he too can’t wait to leave, he shouldn’t forget who just took him out and who is the **Boss** , as he called him.

Greed gently pats the head of the woman he just knocked out cold without meaning to. To be fair, they were having a jailbreak, it was chaos everywhere, Military was on its way, they had to leave and quick, and Greed couldn’t exactly guess who was turning the corner when he swung his fist.

Had he known, he wouldn’t have swung it so hard.

For an instant, he’s tempted to just swing her over his shoulder and take her with him, but it’d probably be more trouble than it’s worth, kidnapping active Military personnel when he’s not to the best of his strength yet. Too bad, because the woman is a pretty one and he wouldn’t mind seeing her in something nicer than that drab uniform. Ah, well.

To make up for the fact he knocked her out, he lays her down gently on the ground, propped against the wall. She’s slide on the side, boneless, and he rearranges her as comfortably as possible given the circumstances, taking note of the tag indicating her name is ‘M. Ross’ stitched on her breast pocket. He wonders what the M. is for. Molly? Missy? Meredith? Mildred? He banged a Mildred once, and she had been a fun ride.

Too bad he can’t ask the lady directly.

(He does find out eventually, from a newspaper cut talking about a ‘Second Lieutenant Maria Ross’, with her picture right next to it. Sweet name.)

He gets back to his feet with a nod of satisfaction. It’s not ideal, but it’ll do, and someone will find her soon enough.

“I don’t make a habit of hitting women,” he says casually with a shrug under the gaze of the various Chimeras who stuck around ( _his Chimera_ , now) before turning away and punching a hole in the nearest whole.

Time to blow this joint.


	5. Nina

“Who… are… you?”

It’s a failed Chimera. Well, failed in the sense where it’s not human-looking, and it should have been, since it’s speaking – you need to mix up humans in the creation if you want something sentient enough to master speech, one of the others told him. So yeah, according to those criteria’s, this one is a failure, unlike Dolcetto, Roa or Martel or even Bido, who are human-shaped (yeah, Bido too is considered a success, though not a great one because he’s kinda scaly and he got a tail, but he can walk on two legs and he speaks, so it counts as successful, right?).

This one Chimera, though… It looks like a big dog, somehow. A big dog with human hairs, long and brown and dirty and they’d need some shampoo and conditioner, geese. Her voice – because it’s a she, the others told him – is weird, too deep, modified through the transmutation. But under the weirdness, Greed can still hear the echoes of a clearer, child-like voice.

No need to be a genius to understand what was the human they used to make it. He wonders if it played a role, the lack of mass of a little girl when mixed with, what, an enormous dog body?

It’s fucking ugly, that’s what it is. Not the dog-kid Chimera, of course (though she’s not exactly nice to look at). No, it’s the whole situation that stinks. Greed is no saint, but he can’t help but find using a little kid incredibly low.

That one, even if the other Chimeras hadn’t asked him to break her out specifically, he’d have taken her with him anyway. There is no way he’s leaving a kid here.

Gently, he pets her head, grinning.

“Me? I’m Greed, kiddo, and I’m going to take you out of here.”

The dog-kid Chimera ( _Nina_ , Martel informs him under her breath) can’t smile, but she starts wagging her tail to show her happiness, and that’s all the answer Greed needs for his grin to grow wider.

****

End


End file.
